Underrail: The Incline Awakens

[ItsChon]

Is Expedition any good? Is it worth starting another build? How many hours for a completionist expansion playthrough?

Shotguns, Spears, and the new Psi school are all great additions, and I'd recommend trying each of them (especially spears). The artwork is beautiful throughout, and exploration is really cranked up to ten. There is the occasional boring or repetitive location (Nexus of Technology and the Horticultural Center), but these are also contrasted with some of the best dungeons in the main game (Joint Security Headquarters, Mutie Island/West Storage Depot, Leumerian Manufacturing Complex, Pirate Base, Abyssal Station Zero, Natives, etc). Expedition is a little wordier, but I consider this to be a good thing. There are a ton of memorable characters, and the overall dichotomy of the expedition versus the pirates is really cool, so I'd recommend a playthrough where you help each side once to see the different content.

The encounter design isn't as good as the main game, but it's not nearly as bad as some people make it out to be. The crabs coming out of the ground and the strongmen suddenly turning on can be a bit annoying, but it also forces you to approach each encounter in a specific way to best handle a tough fight. Locusts are aids, but you really only have to fight them in one area and can avoid them the rest of the game after that. Just bring some MK2/3 grenades and bomb them to hell. If you have sneak, sneak up and TNT the hives.

TL;DR: Play it.

 

[Tigranes]

if you loved UR and especially buildfagging and combat then xpack is well worth it

not as good as main game on all areas though

 

[ItsChon]

if you loved UR and especially buildfagging and combat then xpack is well worth it

not as good as main game on all areas though

Personally, my favorite part of the game is directly after Depot A, where you do the quests from Camp Hathor to the Foundry. While Expedition isn't as good as this peak, I'd say it's better than the Institue of Tchort-DC part of the game, and on par with Core City and the Junkyard.

 

[Wunderbar]

Have you even played any of it?

yeah. It's 90% "go to that dungeon and fetch me mcguffin/info".
Core city it isn't.

 

[Alexios]

Have you even played any of it?

yeah. It's 90% "go to that dungeon and fetch me mcguffin/info".
Core city it isn't.

That's a gross exaggeration and doesn't say anything about the content of the "dungeons." The fact that the quests don't have intricate structures doesn't make them uninteresting. They're just more of an exercise in exploration. Also the C&C that Underrail excels at isn't joining this or that faction or making this or that dialogue choice, but giving the player multiple ways to clear a given area, and Expedition excels at that just like the main game.

 

[Wunderbar]

Alexios i found Expedition dungeons boring and much more linear than base game dungeons.

Ventilation shafts are uninteresting - they usually either lead to a room i've already visited, a room i can't crawl in because of some prop, or a room too dangerous to crawl in. There are too many enemies, and said enemies for the most part annoying - crabs spawn right under you even if you was in stealth mode, robots are tanky as fuck and not particularly interesting to fight. And locusts, holy shit that was a bad idea.

The only dungeons I liked were Health center (because i was able to reliably stealth through it) and Blistering shores (because it was short).

 

[ItsChon]

The only dungeons I liked were Health center (because i was able to reliably stealth through it) and Blistering shores (because it was short).

Joint Securit Command Center was great, and the Native Village had some damn good boss fights. The Pirate bases were also damn good too if you raided them to rescue Oldfield, or if you just wanted to massacre them all. West Depot A was also not bad. You've brought up the ventilation shafts like three different times and it's fucking weird bro. They're really not that big of a deal.

EDIT: No one has mentioned Jet Ski's btw, but they're a lot of fun too if you invest and get an expensive one.

 

[Wunderbar]

You've brought up the ventilation shafts like three different times and it's fucking weird bro. They're really not that big of a deal.

i really hated nexus of technology, there were like 6 or 8 copypasted floors with same useless vents.

EDIT: No one has mentioned Jet Ski's btw, but they're a lot of fun too if you invest and get an expensive one.

found them meh. I have also bought a relatively expensive one (Glow).

 

[Alexios]

Alexios i found Expedition dungeons boring and much more linear than base game dungeons.

Ventilation shafts are uninteresting - they usually either lead to a room i've already visited, a room i can't crawl in because of some prop, or a room too dangerous to crawl in. There are too many enemies, and said enemies for the most part annoying - crabs spawn right under you even if you was in stealth mode, robots are tanky as fuck and not particularly interesting to fight. And locusts, holy shit that was a bad idea.

The only dungeons I liked were Health center (because i was able to reliably stealth through it) and Blistering shores (because it was short).

I definitely agree about locusts. As for crabs I only have encountered them on Normal difficulty so I can't give an opinion on them in other difficulties.

Assuming you mean Handmaidens and Strongmen by robots, I never thought they were really meant to be fought, especially for a stealth character. There was almost always another way to deal with them. Same for Naga Protectors.

 

[ItsChon]

i really hated nexus of technology, there were like 6 or 8 copypasted floors with same useless vents.

Nexus was trash, agreed. Still, Health Care Center, Blistering Shores, and Joint Security Center were all really solid. The ruins underneath a Pirate base with like 5 naga protectors and plasma turrets was really good too.

found them meh. I have also bought a relatively expensive one (Glow).

Eh. The Phaser and the Devastator were really good. Phaser makes you zoom and the Devestator's Plasma cannon puts the hurt on people.

 

[Tigranes]

There's a lot to like in Expeditions, it's just that at any given moment you're never free from one of several things that really puts a tiring drag on the xpack.

Some of the ruins areas have some great atmosphere and well-paced revelations about what happened... but you have to fight identical copypasta mobs 18 times all the way through, each time just as excruciatingly slow (but routine) as another.

There are some fantastic chats with the boatmen, truly good writing... but you have to find the dude while plodding your jetski around 20 empty sea zones (and then taking detours if some zones become no-go because pirates/locusts waiting for you at transition)

The base game also had times when it could really be tedious (e.g. drilling for ore & larvae in the Foundry, all of DC), but large chunks of the game could be enjoyed free of them. In Expeditions, the core design principles are an infusion of tedium and excellence.

 

[ItsChon]

n Expeditions, the core design principles are an infusion of tedium and excellence.

That's the gist of it. In that sense, I'm not too worried about the future, as long as Styg actually takes note of the feedback he gets, things should be fine. It makes me wonder though, did the testers not mention these things to Styg? One would think the super annoying Locusts, the copy-pasted levels of the Nexus of Technology, and the very similar Strongmen/Handmaidens would have been super obvious things to point it.

EDIT: I also do wish Styg would have diversified the wildlife a bit. Other than the crabs, there should have been more variety than just the Serpents (also annoying), the Locusts, and the occasional group of Siphoners.

 

[Trashos]

did the testers not mention these things to Styg?

Styg is very headstrong. He does listen to feedback occasionally, but when he likes sth he does not care if everybody else hates it. That is mostly a good thing (when developers are easily shaken, their games usually end up directionless), but not always.

 

[Xeon]

Even tho I beat the base game, I still have no idea what the frequencies in the shield do. I would imagine each frequency is better against either Psi, Mechanical or Bio? But I have no idea which is which if that's the case, so if that's how the shield works, can someone please help.

Edit:
Are there any tricks to dealing with Goliath at low levels? or is it better to delay dealing with them until I am high level, I am playing at dominating if it helps.

 

[Parabalus]

Even tho I beat the base game, I still have no idea what the frequencies in the shield do. I would imagine each frequency is better against either Psi, Mechanical or Bio? But I have no idea which is which if that's the case, so if that's how the shield works, can someone please help.

Basically there are 5 impact speed types and each shield has 5 absorption values, for each speed type, so you can min-max vs various enemy types.

Usually you just take one very low shield vs critters/melee and one medium-high vs everything else.

 

[Egosphere]

Even tho I beat the base game, I still have no idea what the frequencies in the shield do. I would imagine each frequency is better against either Psi, Mechanical or Bio? But I have no idea which is which if that's the case, so if that's how the shield works, can someone please help.

Edit:
Are there any tricks to dealing with Goliath at low levels? or is it better to delay dealing with them until I am high level, I am playing at dominating if it helps.

I think the shield frequencies work better against projectiles that are fired at the same velocity.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Now all we need are cybernetics and power armor.

 

[Trashos]

Even tho I beat the base game, I still have no idea what the frequencies in the shield do. I would imagine each frequency is better against either Psi, Mechanical or Bio? But I have no idea which is which if that's the case, so if that's how the shield works, can someone please help.

It has already been answered above, but here are the full details from the wiki.
https://www.underrail.com/wiki/index.php?title=Impact_Speed#Shielding

Energy shields can absorb certain amounts of damage based on the damage's impact speed. Slower impact speeds are generally better against energy shields. Shield Capacity is the total amount of damage the shield can absorb when fully charged.

All physical damage sources have an Impact Speed, which is one of the following:

Very Low — Melee attacks
Low — Slow projectiles (considerably slower than bullets, such as crossbow bolts and cryokinesis)
Medium — Pistol and SMG bullets, shrapnel (from frag grenades/mines)
Fast — Explosives, extremely fast projectiles (such as those fired from sniper and assault rifles)
Very Fast — Lasers, plasma, electrical attacks

Additionally, most light melee attacks will ignore certain amount of shield.
60% — Typical knives
80% — Typical fist weapons
100% — Unarmed

Therefore, you ideally want Low/Low against melee, High/High against laser, and various combinations for the in-between. In practice, I do what Parabalus recommended above.

 

[Mikeal]

Seriously wtf are zone transition errors? I never had a bug in Underrail...

 

[Twiglard]

Seriously wtf are zone transition errors? I never had a bug in Underrail...

Game running low on memory.

 

[Blackmill]

So, throwing builds are really strong. This feels even easier than Psi. I was expecting the Arena fights to be a problem but Carnifex was taken out at level 18 without too much reliance on RNG. Just needed 3-4 decent prob rolls to go well. And this was without several items and feats that could have made it much easier. A lot of the fights I typically find hard (warehouse defense, shopping mall, the Beast) were really easy. Black Sea ruins have been hard but mostly because I don't want to use my MK III EMPs. Biggest problem is how often you need to run to shops. You'll never own a nice house with this build.

 

[ItsChon]

So, throwing builds are really strong. This feels even easier than Psi. I was expecting the Arena fights to be a problem but Carnifex was taken out at level 18 without too much reliance on RNG. Just needed 3-4 decent prob rolls to go well. And this was without several items and feats that could have made it much easier. A lot of the fights I typically find hard (warehouse defense, shopping mall, the Beast) were really easy. Black Sea ruins have been hard but mostly because I don't want to use my MK III EMPs. Biggest problem is how often you need to run to shops. You'll never own a nice house with this build.

You serious man? I tried a throwing build and it basically devolved into a weaker version of my spear build, where I was playing almost entirely around spear throw. What difficulty are you on, care to post the build?

 

[Blackmill]

So, throwing builds are really strong. This feels even easier than Psi. I was expecting the Arena fights to be a problem but Carnifex was taken out at level 18 without too much reliance on RNG. Just needed 3-4 decent prob rolls to go well. And this was without several items and feats that could have made it much easier. A lot of the fights I typically find hard (warehouse defense, shopping mall, the Beast) were really easy. Black Sea ruins have been hard but mostly because I don't want to use my MK III EMPs. Biggest problem is how often you need to run to shops. You'll never own a nice house with this build.

You serious man? I tried a throwing build and it basically devolved into a weaker version of my spear build, where I was playing almost entirely around spear throw. What difficulty are you on, care to post the build?

Playing on Dominating. Here's the most important stuff:

- Using Temporal Manipulation to reduce grenade cooldown.
- Knowing the best merchants (coretech, pirates, constantine) and using mercantile to stockpile tons of MK III plasma grenades and MK V regular grenades. Lots of running to shops.
- Maxing dex, you pretty quicky get at least 30% crit chance on grenades. MK III plasmas do nearly 800 on a crit.
- Crawler poison throwing knives, flashbangs, caltrops, and temporal dilation keep tough enemies like Carnifex permanently rooted/stunned.
- Gas grenades for really tough fights.
- Vanishing Powder as plan b.

Usually fights works like this: throw frag grenade (usually MK III or MK IV will do), clean up with throwing knives (fatal throw + split spare), flashbang any that aren't dead, run in to cover and repeat next turn with temporal increment. Throw crawler poison caltrops if you need more control. Vanishing powder if the situation is really bad.

 

[Xeon]

Spoiler

Can special encounters be triggered by just switching maps? or do I have to wait for a long time as well?

Edit:
I thought Cloaking Device would help me hide from cameras and robots but that doesn't seem to be the case, some robots can instantly see me no matter what, which kinda sucks.

Al Fabet is the best character in the game, he understands.

Edit:
I am doing Expedition and it kinda sucks. I guess I have a timer? so I am mostly doing the main quest and ignoring everything else and every place is just chuck full of combat only encounters and nothing else, really not enjoying it that much. the additions to it outside of the main quest was pretty fun, the Dude's quest was pretty funny and the reward was amazing.

Spoiler

I rescued the professor from the pirates with negotiations, one of them it said I can pass through their territories without restriction so I thought that was cool and didn't have to join them but apparently that's not how that works, I needed to join them in order to visit their port.

I can't find any of their leaders outside now so I am not able to join them, I can't visit their port unless I choose to massacre all of them which I really don't feel like doing on top of all the combat I have been doing in the ruins.

 

[Blackmill]

Spoiler

Can special encounters be triggered by just switching maps? or do I have to wait for a long time as well?

Edit:
I thought Cloaking Device would help me hide from cameras and robots but that doesn't seem to be the case, some robots can instantly see me no matter what, which kinda sucks.

Al Fabet is the best character in the game, he understands.

Edit:
I am doing Expedition and it kinda sucks. I guess I have a timer? so I am mostly doing the main quest and ignoring everything else and every place is just chuck full of combat only encounters and nothing else, really not enjoying it that much. the additions to it outside of the main quest was pretty fun, the Dude's quest was pretty funny and the reward was amazing.

Spoiler

I rescued the professor from the pirates with negotiations, one of them it said I can pass through their territories without restriction so I thought that was cool and didn't have to join them but apparently that's not how that works, I needed to join them in order to visit their port.

I can't find any of their leaders outside now so I am not able to join them, I can't visit their port unless I choose to massacre all of them which I really don't feel like doing on top of all the combat I have been doing in the ruins.

Expedition has only one true timer, and it's after the DLC's main quest. Very vague spoiler provided, if you don't want to miss it.

Spoiler

There's a guy who wants to meet with you in a certain bar. He won't wait for you forever.

But you do have to respond to native raids often enough or the camp gets wiped (and they may go hostile to you for being absent). I guess that's a timer of sorts.

Yeah, it seems you can only get partial access to the pirate base through negotiations, but I don't think that is ever told to the player. I believe you can't join the pirates after having rescued the Prof and that it's a quest trigger rather than a timer.